Do you have the Parkinson’s gene ?

Any close relative with Parkinson’s ?

Do you want to try to prevent Parkinson’s ?

Parkinson’s Prevention

ABOUT OUR PROGRAM

CliniCrowd is a global community for Parkinson’s patients and those at-risk to share their experiences, treatments, and insights. The goal of the site is to provide you with science-based, safe solutions to help you manage your disease.

By joining CliniCrowd, you can easily track your disease progress and make educated decisions about which treatments work best for you. The wisdom of the crowd will be used to test whether treatments are effective enough to achieve desired outcomes while allowing you to compare your status with your community members.

click here to access personal and community reports collected from the registries

MANNITOL

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by degeneration and loss of neurons, particularly those crucial for coordination of movements. Studies have shown that by the time the symptoms appear, people with Parkinson’s have lost 60% to 80% of their dopamine producing cells. According to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the degeneration and loss of neurons is the pathological hallmark of Parkinson’s.

Alpha synuclein is an abundant protein in the brain especially in the presynaptic terminal of neurons. It plays a role in maintaining vesicles for the neurotransmitters in the nerve endings. There has been significant research in the areas of preventing excess alpha synuclein formation or clumping and disruption of the already existing clumps.

According to NIH Genetics Home Reference, there are genes known to predispose for Parkinson’s: Approximately 15% of people with Parkinson’s disease have a family history of this disorder. Familial cases of Parkinson’s disease can be caused by mutations in the LRRK2, PARK2, PARK7, DJ-1, PINK1, SNCA, or TMEM230 gene, or by alterations in genes that have not been identified. Mutations in some of these genes may also play a role in cases that appear to be sporadic (not inherited) alterations in certain genes, including GBA (associated with Gaucher disease, see relationship between Gaucher disease and Parkinson’s disease) and UCHL1, which do not cause Parkinson’s disease but appear to modify the risk of developing the condition in some families. Variations in other genes that have not been identified probably also contribute to Parkinson’s disease risk.

Mannitol, a common low calorie sweetener, determined by the FDA to be generally recognized as safe (GRAS) food additive – see link to FDA site and link to EFSA site – has shown that it can prevent alpha synuclein clumping in pre-clinical studies conducted by Professor Daniel Segal and Professor Ehud Gazit at Tel Aviv University in Israel, in collaboration with Professor Eliezer Masliah at University of California, San Diego.

Theirpublication, showed that in the test tube Mannitol was effective in preventing formation of alpha-synuclein aggregates, which are known to cause Parkinson. Furthermore, they used transgenic fruit-flies, which were genetically engineered to have alpha-synuclein aggregates in their brain, and fed them with Mannitol starting at early stages of their life cycle and throughout adulthood. This resulted in markedly less aggregates of alpha-synuclein in the brains of the flies, compared with flies that did not receive Mannitol, and was accompanied by significant amelioration of their motor deficits.
Considering together, these results suggest that Mannitol may have a preventive effect on Parkinson’s.

The researchers also examined the effect of Mannitol in Parkinson’s mice model. Note, Mannitol was administered to the mice when they already began to develop alpha-synuclein aggregates, and not before. Therefore, the mice experiments were not designed specifically to test Parkinson’s prevention.

Nevertheless, the encouraging results from the mice experiments do suggest that Mannitol may have prevented further build-up and promoted clearance of the aggregates, thereby accounting for the observed reduction in brain pathology of the Mannitol treated mice compared with untreated counterparts.

Consider joining CliniCrowd’s Prevention Registry if you are healthy and:

Were tested positive genetically to carry a gene causing Parkinson’s, or

Tested positive genetically to carry a recessive gene for Gauche, or

Have close relatives living with Parkinson’s, or

Have close relatives living with Gaucher

and decided to take Mannitol as a preventive nutriment.

MANAGE YOUR OWN DISEASE – JOIN REGISTRY

For further information about Mannitol and Parkinson’s register below. Registering and reporting on your condition every 3 months (follow-up registry), will entitle you to reports reflecting your data as well as cumulative data and findings of the entire community.

With your assistance and further research, we hope we can present relevant data regarding Mannitol and its ability to prevent Parkinson’s.

We’d like to invite you to join the Crowd to see if you, too, can benefit from Mannitol.

Click below to enter the registry: first time and returning participants

“At 2 months, I began to notice that my typing was improving. My arms became more steady. This might sound insignificant, but it was a powerful change to me. Into month 3 & 4, I started to notice that my left arm was able to extend without shaking as much as usual. I am holding a coffee cup, no shaking. I am holding my toothbrush, shaking, but better than before. My optimism is beginning to grow. Month 5, I am noticing my walking is becoming more normalized. Here I am at 6 months and although subtle, the changes are exciting.”

“I was more than pleasantly surprised at the positive effect of Mannitol on my Parkinson’s symptoms. Within a few weeks, my walking improved tremendously. Although there have been some setbacks – we went through a very difficult period in which I was living on adrenaline – my off times still not as bad as they were before, and during my on times, I forget that I was ever diagnosed as having Parkinson’s.”

“From the outset, I felt good things happening. My sleep improved. My sense of smell was returning. Yes, it was gradual process. It took time. At the beginning there were ups and downs but, for the first time in years, I felt something healthy happening to me. It was not a simple process. Myself and Parkinson’s? We are closely intertwined. It is difficult for both of us to let go. But, just as Parkinson’s manifests itself differently in other people, Mannitol does too”